Lewin Findings on Hacker-EPI Health Plan: Good News for Obama and Clinton

February 17, 2008

Roger Hickey

Last week, the Economic Policy Institute released an important analysis of Jacob Hacker’s Health Care for America (HCFA) plan by the respected health economics team at the Lewin Group. As you can read in the EPI press release, Lewin found that HCFA would cover everyone in America, while saving the U.S. economy over a trillion dollars over the next decade. And the efficiencies achievable primarily through Hacker’s public health insurance plan would save enough money that, after modest premiums from employers and individuals, the new system would cost the US government only $50 billion more than what we are paying now for a system that leaves millions uninsured or badly insured.

A year ago, just as EPI was publishing Hacker’s HCFA plan, CAF had already gone to work, engaging everyone who would listen in public and private educational discussions about the Hacker-EPI approach — including Presidential candidates from both parties. After a year-long dialogue, we can see how Hacker’s work has become the template for both Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s health care plans. And just as importantly, our allies in the labor movement, public interest and community action networks are coming together around basic health care principles that are based on Hacker’s model for health care for all. More on this soon – here at this website and at the Take Back America conference.
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About Roger Hickey

Roger Hickey is Co-Director of the Campaign for America’s Future. He was also one of the founders of Health Care for America Now!, a coalition of over 1,000 national and local organizations united to achieve quality affordable health care for all. He was also one of the leaders of the successful campaign to stop the privatization of Social Security, called Americans United to Protect Social Security. Hickey was a founder and Communications Director of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that looks at economics from the point of view of working Americans. He was also a founder of the Public Media Center in San Francisco. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Hickey began his career in the 1960s as an organizer for the Virginia Civil Rights Committee.